November Adventures

I'm not even gonna try to sugar coat this; November sucked! It started off good with our trip to Georgia for the Sky to Summit race, but it tanked shortly after that. A couple days after we got back from Georgia, I had a little rupture in my disc. I would try taking it easy for a couple days, and when I ran, I just tried easy, short ones, but it wasn't getting any better. Then Steph crashed and burned on the Dizzy Horse Preview run, and has to have knee surgery, so she will be out for a minimum of 6 months. Then sweet Taeloni passed away, and now all the other stuff that was going wrong seems like nothing compared to that gut punch. I'm not in a good enough place to even blog about that yet. This has been the coldest, snowiest November I can remember since living in Idaho too. Bitter cold! And to end the month off with the icing on the cake, I am super sick. Ugh! I'm not usually a big complainer, but I'm not one bit sad to see November go away!

With that being said, I didn't do too many adventures this month.

Dizzy Horse Preview Run:

I had big hopes for the Dizzy Horse. I was going to try to make it 50 miles, but now I'm just hoping to be able to make it to the starting line and complete a lap. 😓 But we had a preview run of the course. It was a beautiful, cold, morning, and I wasn't doing much running because my back was not doing very good. The gates weren't open, so we had to climb them. I was super careful, and made it over just fine, but Steph fell, and destroyed her knee. I knew right when we helped her up that it wasn't going to be good by the way her body was shaking. Ugh, surgery at the beginning of December, and she'll be out for 6 months. I'm so bummed for her!

Pretty morning at Sandy Downs!

Great turn out for the preview run! 

Sidewinder/Stinking Springs:

I still had hopes that my back would recover, so Mark and I planned a 8-10 mile training run up Sidewinder, down Stinking Springs, and planned to finish off miles on Wolf Flats. As soon as we finished the 5 mile loop, I knew I had to be done. I was getting zingers through my back, and I knew continuing on would not be good.

The trees at the top of Sidewinder were frozen!

It was a beautiful evening!

We saw so many deer coming down Stinking Springs.

Little Moose:

I needed to do a test run with my back. I needed a nice, easy, consistent run, to see if I could at least make it 10-12 miles. We decided to try Little Moose because Mark and Jenn had never been on it before. We got a little more than we bargained for. So much snow! It was crazy! So, there was actually hardly any running, it wasn't easy, and it mostly consisted of trudging. 😂 We made it 7 miles, and it took forever!

Tricia-Jenn-Mark

I totally want to take them back in the spring, so they can see what the trail is usually like.

Snow up to my knees! And we hadn't even hit the bad part yet.

Great view of the Tetons!

Here's a little example of what our run ended up being like. 😂

Rigby Turkey:

I decided after Little Moose that I would be better off just taking some time off from running to give my back a chance to heal. It would be better to start Dizzy Horse a little out of shape, but with a good back, then to keep trying to train, and end up not even being able to start. But then I had the chance to go run in Rigby and make this great Strava turkey. How could I pass that up!

The Rigby Runners

How fun is this?!?

Women's Runs:

We had our annual IFTR Food Drive Run, where everyone can come (not just women). We loaded the back of Sheila (Amanda's car) with food donations, and then did a nice lap around the river. I love this run each year!

Great turn out for the food drive!

Next, we had our annual turkey trot around downtown.

Turkey Trot!

I missed the run where we spelled JOY because I got super sick out of the blue. Blah! Here's hoping that December ends up being a lot better than November was!

Nora Rae-7 Months

This was a big month for Nora Rae! She learned to sit up on her own, crawl, and say 'mama.' She started eating real food, went to her first hockey and basketball games, and her first movie. Her personality is coming out more and more each month, and she just gets more fun every day!  

This sweet giggle will always be my favorite sound!

Sitting up on her own!

This might be my new favorite video. Watch until the very end! 😂

The weather took a big turn in November and got COLD! That means cute little outfits to keep Nora warm!

OMG she is darling!

So cute!

Hahaha, she's a spaz!

Nora started eating real food, and it's the funniest thing! She is definitely asserting her independence, and wants to feed herself. My favorite thing is to FaceTime her during breakfast.

Trying rice cereal.

Little Miss Independent! 😂

Breakfast facetimes are my favorite! 😂

She loves carrots!

Nora gets to take lots of walks to visit dad at work.

💖💖💖

I love getting Sunday pictures of her at church!

I love those cheeks!

Check out her cute toothy grin!

Soooo cute!

Learning to crawl!

Nora loves hockey!

Go Steelheads!

The smirk at the end of this video kills me!

Not only did Nora go to her first basketball game, but she met Buster!

Go Broncos!

So cute! Way to go Buster!

Boise State's cutest little family!

This was a fun video to get! 😂

😂😂😂

Happy 7 months baby girl!

Happy Birthday Bailey!

 I have never missed Bailey's birthday, and I thought this year I would. Funny how things just have a way of working out. We ended our Georgia trip on her birthday, but since we flew from Boise, we were there for it! We landed, and before we headed back to Idaho Falls, we gave her a present, and took her to lunch  at Sid's Garage. Poor quality pictures, but it's a fun place to eat!

Steph-Eric-Lyssa-Mason-Bailey-Mark-Nora-Tricia

Steph and Nora

Check out the fun shake she got!

Happy 23rd Bailey Rae! You just keep on kicking butt, one year at a time!

Georgia!

We kicked off November with a trip to Georgia for a 50k race. It was a quick trip because we had never left the donkeys, so we didn't want to be gone long. Joyce and Phil are awesome, and they stayed at our place to watch the critters for us. Clover, Willow, and Reeses were very loved and spoiled while we were away.

We spent all day Thursday traveling. We had to get up early and drive to Boise for our flight. Then we flew into Atlanta, rented our car, and drove a couple hours up the road so we'd be closer to where our race was. 

We're off! On our way to the Boise airport!

On Friday we hiked and toured Tallulah Gorge State Park. We couldn't believe the beautiful fall weather! We were in shorts and short sleeves the whole day. The park is gorgeous! We missed the peak of fall by a week or two, but the trees were still amazing. After the park, we drove to the start line of our race, so we'd know where we needed to go the next morning.

Eric-Steph-Tricia-Mark

The gorge is so pretty in the fall!

We hiked all the way around the north and south rims.

So many cook trails.

I had never seen so many leaves on the ground.....until the next day.

We hiked down a gazillion stairs to get to the bottom of the gorge.

Steph and Eric used this trip as their 'funny moon.' What better way to celebrate a marriage then by rooming with me and Mark! 😂

There is a cool suspension bridge that goes across the gorge.

After the rim hikes, we drove to another part of the park and did some more exploring.

I loved all the crunchy leaves so much!

We found Christmas holly! We had never seen it before, and had no idea it grew as a bush.

Saturday morning, Mark, Steph, and I ran the Sky to Summit 50k. I thinks it's my new favorite course. Brutal climbs, crazy, scary downhills, pouring rain all day, the most leaves I've ever seen in my life, amazing waterfalls, plenty of mud, and basically the coolest trail! It was everything an ultra should be! The temperature was great, despite the rain, and Mark and I have never been more grateful for our PUTS hats with the long brims to keep the rain out of our faces. We all surprised ourselves and did better than expected for how hard the course was. 

Getting ready to start!

I kept saying the trail looked like something from the movie, The Village.

So many leaves!

There was an out and back section, and we saw Steph on our way back.  Her and Mark had both taken a tumble.

The clouds broke for just a second, and we got a glimpse of all the colors we had been missing the hole time. That part was a bummer, but the stormy weather added it's own element of fun to the race. We loved it!

It took us roughly 7 hours and 43 minutes to finish.

We didn't get tons of pictures because our phones we wet the whole time, but we did get one of the three of us after we finished.

We love Georgia! We totally want to go back and do more exploring when we have more time. Sometimes when we randomly pick races in other states, we're taking a risk that they won't be good, but this one was perfect!